ILLUSTRATION

PHOTOS

CONSERVATION STATUS

UK Conservation Status

European Conservation Status

Conservation Description

In the UK, Isle of Man, and Ireland, the Goosander mostly breeds in northern England and Scotland, and mostly winters in Britain. It has a "Green" status because of its large, stable population.

SUMMARY

Overview

Goosander: Large duck with long, thin bill. Mostly white with creamy highlights. Black head with dark green highlights, black on back and in wings. Also has pale grey lower back, rump, and tail, and dark orange bill, legs, and feet. Fast, direct flight. Bill serrations usually not visible in field.

Range and Habitat

Goosander: Winter visitor and resident breeder. During summer breeding birds can be found in Wales, north and west England, and Scotland on upland waterways and lakes. Ireland has a very small breeding population. During winter birds visit from northern Europe and are likely to be found on estuaries, lakes, gravel pits and reservoirs.

SONGS AND CALLS

Voice Text

Generally silent, except for calls during courtship. Male has a "krroo-krraa" call and female has a hard repeated "prrah" call.

INTERESTING FACTS

Goosander females undergo a post-breeding moult on the breeding grounds during which they become flightless for around 1 month.

Gulls often follow flocks as they forage. They wait for the ducks to come to the surface with fish, and then they try to steal their prey.

These large fish-eaters have serrated edges to their bills to help them grip their prey. Along with the Smew and the other Mergansers, they are often known as "sawbills."

A group of goosanders are collectively known as a "dopping" of goosanders.

RELATED BIRDS

RANGE MAP

FAMILY DESCRIPTION

Geese and Ducks (Anatidae)

ORDER

The ANSERIFORMES (pronounced an-ser-ih-FOR-meez), one of the oldest avian orders, is composed of three families and includes the bizarre and noisy screamers of South America, the odd Magpie Goose of Australia, and the globally distributed swans, geese, and ducks.

FAMILY TAXONOMY

The swans, geese, and ducks are grouped in the Anatidae (pronounced ah-NAH-tih-dee); a bird family with one hundred sixty-four species in forty-eight genera, various members of which can be found on all continents except Antarctica (IOC World Bird List, version 2.3).

EUROPE

The Anatidae are represented in Europe by fifty species in eighteen genera. Members of this well known bird family include the graceful, long-necked swans, familiar geese of farm fields, and the many species of ducks.

KNOWN FOR

While all species are known for their association with aquatic habitats, geese are also known for their aggressive behaviour when guarding their nests and young. After the breeding season, Greylag Geese become better known for the “V" shaped flocks they form during migration.

PHYSICAL

Swans, geese, and ducks are large birds with long necks (longest in swans, shortest in ducks) and short tails. All species have webbed feet suited to their aquatic environments and distinctive flat bills – except for the mergansers with their thin, serrated bills ideally suited for catching and holding fish.

COLORATION

Although swans and geese are mostly white, brown, and black, many ducks showcase several shades of greys, browns, and blacks combined with fine barring and streaking to result in a variety of beautifully patterned plumages for which females of the species are well known. Males in breeding plumage are more boldly patterned and often have iridescent blue or green on the head. Both sexes usually show a spot of colour on the wing known as a “speculum".

GEOGRAPHIC HABITAT

Swans, geese, and ducks occur throughout Europe wherever aquatic habitats are found. While geese and some ducks are often found along the shoreline, species that feed on underwater vegetation such as swans and dabbling ducks prefer calm water with depths suited to the length of their necks. In deeper waters, the mergansers, scoters, and diving ducks occur. Boldly-patterned Harlequin Ducks swim in the swift rivers and turbulent seashores of Iceland.

MIGRATION

A highly migratory family, most species migrate to open, ice-free water in sheltered bays and marshes of coastal and southern Europe whereas the Garganey winters in sub-Saharan Africa.

HABITS

Members of the Anatidae flock together after breeding in large, multi-species groups at sites with good, safe foraging. At such sites, scoters, scaups, and other diving ducks dive for mussels in the deep sections while dabblers such as Gadwall and Northern Shovelers forage on the surface and in the shallows. On the shore, grazers such as geese and Widgeon forage on grass.

CONSERVATION

There are a few members of this family in Europe of conservation concern. The Red-breasted Goose is listed as globally endangered because its entire population winters at very few sites and has sharply declined in recent years. The White-headed Duck is likewise an endangered species that is threatened by loss of the wetlands it requires and hybridization with the introduced Ruddy Duck. Inhabiting some of the same shallow marshes in Spain as the White-headed Duck, and thus also threatened by habitat loss, is the vulnerable Marbled Duck.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Goosander, Red-breasted Merganser, and the Smew are often called “sawbills" in reference to the serrated edges of their thin bills that are adapted to catching fish. Regarding the well-known description of the sound made by a duck as a “quack," duck species in Europe also variously whistle, squeak, click, and grunt.

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters
of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus)
and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante
(2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42
(Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported
by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) was established in the mid-1990 s as a cooperative project among several federal agencies to improve and
expand upon taxonomic data (known as the NODC Taxonomic Code) maintained by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA).

To find the ITIS page for a bird species go to the ITIS web site advanced search and report page at http://www.itis.gov/advanced_search.html.
You can enter the TSN or the common name of the bird. It will return the ITIS page for that bird. Another way to obtain the ITIS page is to use
the Google search engine. Enter the string ITIS followed by the taxonomic ID, for example "ITIS 178041" will return the page for the Allen's Hummingbird.